Life in a Brittany Garden

Daphne odora aureomarginata. If only I could put this perfume in a blog post! These relatively unshowy flowers are pretty, and welcome at this time of year. But the fragrance….If you could bottle it I’d wear it!St. Maudez amongst the pines: Plestin beach: Honeycomb weirdness over the mussels – every year it’s the same! Medlar…

This is my ‘happiest’ day – although I’m often too depressed to notice it. From now on from this, the shortest day, we start the upward climb to summer. There will be more and more light. Winter (although not yet really arrived) will be giving way to Spring. Today a visit to Huelgoat. After the…

Yes, another one! But first before I post pictures of more sea, rocks and sand… The Seed Exchange went well.  I came home with some interesting (potentially) bean, lettuce and pea seeds – varieties all new to me. As well as some flower seeds that I’m very happy to have. Today, a trip under rainy…

1st of December, so it’s Winter. The temperatures dispute that, as it’s 14 degrees daytime and no less than 7 degrees overnight. But it is raining. It’s been raining for what feels like ages, and that’s always the case here. Once the rain starts it’s hard to remember that it was ever sunny. But as…

A trip West to the coast above Brest. This really is the land that time forgot territory. No reason for anyone to ever go there. The region is called, in tourist speak, ‘Les Abers’. There are three ‘Abers’ or estuaries/creeks. Abers Wrac’h, Benoit and Ildut. The countryside is unrelentingly flat and almost tree-less. Reminiscent of…

I didn’t expect to be seeing any more butterflies. But a truly beautiful day today brought forth this stunning Comma. It was obviously enjoying feasting on the windfall apples. And this Speckled Wood was floating around for most of this afternoon. I’ve been intrigued by this for a few days now…a wasps nest that was…

A trip out to avoid sitting at home during a power cut –  not an unexpected one. EDF let me know three weeks ago that there would be work being done. The electric went off as I went out of the door, and it was back on when I got back. The Pink Granite Coast…

Well, if you didn’t know that the baby blackbird had disappeared at around the same time as Hissy died (and why would you?) This won’t be news. But today, something struck me about the flurry, fuss and noise of a blackbird close by. I had cheese parings in the barn (as you do…) and made…

It was a hard frost; the Dahlias have collapsed into blackness and rotting stems. But, with a bit of netting strewn over various patches of garden, the majority of the late vegetables came through it unscathed. A good mix here of Pak Choi, Mizuna, Mustard Green, Celery, ‘Purple Top Milan’ turnips, baby carrots, Jerusalem artichokes…

But until this week-end it still felt like summer. Sunshine in Coat Noz forest: Fly Agarics (Amanita muscaria) in the field close to home: Evening sunshine at St Maudez: Sunset at Balanou: Porcelain fungus  (Oudemansiella mucila) on beech at the Gorge de Corong: And something lovely on rotten wood. My guess is that it’s some…